


Irises

by witheredsong



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 10:30:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4784114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witheredsong/pseuds/witheredsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ivan is unwell, and Miro misses him something terrible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set during Klasnic's major surgery for kidney transplant. This fic was written about 7 years ago, I am just archiving.

He has been living with a sense of time running out since November 2005.

 

These are some universal truths. The older die first, the younger later, children are given piggyback rides by dads, football is life and death encapsulated in 90 minutes, the K-and-K take the Bundesliga by storm. Ivan laughs, a little bitter and says, Miro, not everything that happens is fair.

 

Dream. Chess, Ivan smiles and tells him, is a political game. He knows, he says to Ivan. Question is, why is the board red and white, and why Ivan wants to play? He has never been intellectually inclined, much. Ivan smiles, the corner of his mouth turns up, lop-sided, and says…that hurts, Miro. His eyes are dark with suffering, but the smile doesn’t dim – this is very important. Play for me. Or you’ll lose. There is something Ivan isn’t telling him, this is way more important than it seems, he knows, asks, “What will I lose? Ivan…” and Ivan touches his face, his fingers like the touch of snowflakes, says, unaccountably grave, says, Miroslav …

 

They are training, and it is what it is. Not much time for thought, or contemplation. The clean smell of sweat, the fresh scent of grass, weak sunshine, the crisp bite of winter wind – synaesthesia, and to a footballer, poetry. Miro runs, runs, hears nothing but the pounding of his heart, the furious pump of blood through his veins, feels the ache of being gloriously alive. Behind him, Diego still finds it difficult to cope with the German winter, is wrapped up in layers of clothing, beside him, he can see Torsten’s curls streaming in the wind, looks in front, the sweat stings his eyes, the empty road stretches, and he has miles to go. He speeds up, leaves the others behind, his breath leaves a trail of mist in the freezing air. Beside him, the memory of a smile keeps pace, and Miro can’t outrun the absence even if he tries his hardest.

 

He has always been alone.

 

He sits in his work-room and carves at a piece of wood. He finds peace in this, the movement of his fingers, the chisel chipping away at pieces of wood, shape emerging from the amorphous mass. A bird, wings outstretched. He smiles, takes up the carving knife, gives shape and texture to the feathers. Sylwia enters, silent, lays a hand on his shoulder. Her blouse is stained with something like chocolate, her hair is dishevelled, motherhood tires her out. He lays down his tools, the carving, tucks her hair behind her small, neat ears, She leans into him, his warmth, closes her eyes as he kisses her, soft, tender. The boys giggle, peeking from behind the half-opened door.

 

The clarity of truth is profound. And simple. He loves Ivan. There is nothing he can measure this realization or this emotion against, value judgements, more/less, either/or, neither/nor, like/as…these parameters do not apply. He loves Ivan. That’s all there is to it.

 

When the phone-call comes, in the middle of the night, Miro feels nothing. There is just a vast numb emptiness. The boys start crying and their whimpers filter into the muted half-shadows of the bedroom. Sylwia gets up and pads to the nursery. Patricia is incoherent on the other side, crying, “Miro, Miro..what shall I do?”. He can hear Josip soothing baby Fabiana in the background, Peter Horndasch takes over and says, very gently, “He is in surgery again. The transplant failed.” If he says anything else, Miro doesn’t hear. When Sylwia comes back, she finds him sitting upright against the pillows, the edges of the mobile-phone cutting into his palm. She gently pries his hand open, takes the phone, lays it on the bedside table, switches off the lamp, and holds him tight during the night. He lies awake, eyes wide open, until the light tiptoes into the room, chasing the shadows into corners.

 

Ivan embraces him on the field. Always, after a goal, a successful assist, Ivan will find him and anchor him. Ivan, he says and turns, is wrapped in Per’s arms, Torsten, Diego, Naldo pile on.

 

He, the exile, the rootless, never finds home.

 

Ivan smiles, beer in hand, the fire reflected in his eyes, “Only in your sheltered heart…”. He jerks awake. He wipes his eyes angrily.

 

He can’t stop scoring, Werder can’t stop winning.

 

It’s a stolen visit to Zagreb. A few hours. He is shaking, and shoves his hands into the pockets of his trousers. When he reaches the hospital, the smell of disinfectant makes him ill, he almost turns back. He steps into Ivan’s suite, silently. Patricia looks up, blinks, and in a moment is in his arms. He holds the fragile body, finds no comfort to give. He doesn't know who comforts whom, or if comfort is even possible. She steps back after a minute, looks up at him and says, “He misses you. I’ll go get a coffee.”

 

Ivan is unrecognizable. Gaunt, pale, and so many wires and tubes and needles everywhere he looks like something out of a horror movie. Miro doesn’t know this Ivan, wants his own Ivan back; he wants to held in strong sure arms. He sits quietly beside the bed, takes a thin hand in his own, and bends his head near Ivan’s on the pillow. Their breathing falls into a rhythm, and Miro closes his eyes. I’ll not let you go, he whispers fiercely, like a prayer. He kisses Ivan softly, and Ivan opens his eyes, looks at him. Ivan smiles, and his lips hold a secret. There is a vase of irises on the windowsill; a shaft of stray sunlight illuminates the three-petalled blue flowers. He smoothes his hand on the sad fuzz of hair on Ivan’s head. I know, Ivan says.

 

 

Among his carpenter’s tools, wood-chips, sawdust, a deflated football, toy motorcars, and delicate carvings of strange animals to please his sons, among the books and CDs, old issues of the Rund and Player magazines, there is a framed photograph. Two men, in orange and white and green, in the moment before a fierce embrace, arms coming round each other, blinding smiles. A sprig of blue iris is tossed carelessly beside it on the table. Two men sit outside in the sun, talking softly, the gentle and the reckless one, bent close, twined together.

 

It is of them that people speak – the two of them, it is the twosome that is kept in memory and whose legend is revived. K-and-K. Inseparable.


	2. Because you waited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New beginnings and old loves. Also gifts of the Magi.

The cell-phone rings at a most inopportune moment, because he is in the process of taking off his kit, and hence, his hands are tangled in the sleeves and he is blinded by the fabric. By the time he’s freed himself from the tangle and emerged, the entire locker room has heard the opening bars to "Ein Stern (der Deinen Namen..)", courtesy of a bored Schweini and a long journey home from one of the UEFA Cup matches. Everyone is looking at him expectantly. He fumbles open the lid and presses the phone to his ears without looking at the number, because only two people usually call him when he is at training. They are just three years old, identical and so naughty both he and Sylwia have a hard time catching up with them. Their present favourite game is to dial their father or mother’s cell-phones, or indeed, failing that, any random number, then giggle and put the phone down. The phone bills are going to be murder. A smile is already lighting up his face when he says hello into the cell.

 

The voice on the other side momentarily takes him by surprise and shakes him so badly Luca Toni looks at him, at his sudden paleness, with concern. He waves Luca away and turns to his locker to shield himself from the inquisitive looks of his team-mates, feeling his hands shake and joy blooms in his heart like a rose.

 

“Mirek?” It is Ivan, and Miro wishes he were someplace else, because he is sure anyone who sees him now will know his secret, his joy and heartache that he has kept hidden from everyone.

 

“Miro, you there?” and he manages to croak out, foolishly, “How did you get my number?”

There is a slight pause, and Ivan’s voice is uncharacteristically hesitant, unsure. “From Sylwia. Miro? Did I call at a bad time? Is this not okay?”

Miro curses himself, because he is never good with words, and how to explain to Ivan that this phone-call is an unexpected gift in the middle of a humdrum day, that he is shaking so badly now the phone is threatening to slip out of his sweaty hand?

 

“No. No. God, Ivan.” And he starts to laugh, gladness bubbling up. “Oh you. For you there never is a bad time. Ivan.” Once again, savouring the name and it feels so good.

 

Ivan is laughing now as well. “Well, you frightened me for a moment. Now that you have joined ranks with the princes. Motherfucking Bayern. The rest of us are like serfs before your greatness, O lord!”

 

The teasing is so familiar that Miro’s heart aches a bit. He closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the cool locker door. He knows exactly how Ivan looks at this moment, eyes crinkled at the corners, dark eyes alight with mischief, that cupid bow mouth - so incongruous in that strong face - curled up at the left corner, hiding secrets.

 

“No truly. Mirek. I am so proud of you. And so glad. At least you didn’t go off to England. I can’t bear thinking of my phone bills if you did.” And this so uncannily echoes his earlier thoughts, he laughs again.

 

“I saw you play, Ivan. Yesterday. Two goals, eh? Making up for lost time?” Miro returns the teasing affectionately, but remembers how he was on edge for all of the 67 minutes Ivan was on the field, how he watched heart in his mouth, as Ivan went into tackles just as bravely and recklessly as before. And how he prayed silently. The death of the young lad in Spain has shaken everyone’s belief in their supposed invincible immortality, and Ivan’s body was far more vulnerable…Miro cuts off this train of thought, banishes the memory of those dark months when Ivan was in hospital and he felt as if both his professional and personal lives were falling apart. That was then. But now it is different. He is at a different, bigger club. Ivan is healthy.

 

“My whole body was tingling Mirek. It was so strange, like playing my first game again. If I couldn’t have played, I would have wept.”

 

“It was your first game in a way, Ivan. Almost everyone gave up hope that you would ever play again.”

 

Ivan laughs, a little bitter, and there is a moment’s silence. When he speaks again, there is so much wonder and love in his voice. “But not you. You never gave up, did you. My gentle Miro.”

 

Miro feels his throat tighten and eyes sting. His voice is hoarse as he whispers quietly,“No. I didn’t give up hope.”

 

Ivan breathes quietly down the line, and Miro can hear behind him the sounds of his teammates quietly leaving the room, one by one, to friends and families and loved ones. He should go too, leaving the past buried, to round inquisitive eyes and soft blonde hair -smelling of milk - of his sons, to his gentle and patient wife.

 

But this feeling from which he hides so much, which brought him hundreds of kilometers to a new city and club, this man who haunts his dreams, he is loved too, and the depth of this emotion frightens Miro. He never understood how much until he almost lost Ivan, and when he did, he ran. But that was foolishness. Ivan is branded in his heart, and nothing Miro does can change that.

 

He straightens up, turns around. “Come to me. For a day. Come, please.” 

 

Ivan exhales, and then, “Yes. Yes, I will.”

 

Miro sits down, abruptly, relief coursing through him. “Soon.”

 

Ivan laughs then, bright, beautiful. “Yes.”

 

Miro sits, head buried in hand, for a few moments until he is calm.

 

 

 

When Ivan does manage to come, it is almost a month later. He is flying in, on the advice of Jens Beulke, to see a doctor about his check-up, so the visit is semi-official. And Miro goes up to Hitzfeld and asks for a day off, citing personal reasons. The manager’s eyes are penetrating, and Miro feels as if Ottmar is stripping away all the layers until he can see straight into Miro’s heart. And then Ottmar says, “Okay. One day. And Miroslav? Be careful.”

 

“Be careful.” The warning seems to echo in the silent corridors of the Allianz Arena as Miro makes his way to the car-park. He has so much to lose now, so much. His marriage is just recovering from the strains of the past few months and his heart clenches at the thought of hurting Sylwia any more. If the press even gets wind of what he is about to do, recklessly throwing everything away because he needs to see, just see Ivan once so he can go on with the immensely complicated business of being Miroslav Klose, Germany and Bayern’s poster boy for being the model footballer, his personal life and his career will be in tatters.

 

But he needs this brief reprieve. He feels starved of oxygen sometimes and the absence beside him haunts him. The abyss within him that made him come to Bayern to outrun it threatens to overwhelm him again. Only one person seems to anchor him against this emptiness, against the precipice and if it is not the person the world expects him to turn to, well, it his only for him to know, and no one else’s business.

 

He is waiting quietly by the arrival lounge, waiting for Ivan to appear, when the breath is crushed from him by a tight embrace from behind. He turns blindly in the embrace, arms going around Ivan, breathes in his scent of pinecones and mountains and wood smoke like someone deprived of air for too long. Peace steals into him, calming him. Ivan moves away from him after a long moment, loosening the embrace, but not letting go, his hand at Miro’s shoulder, eyes searching for something. Miro looks at him, his face, thinner than he remembers, the eyes with more lines at the corners, solemn, deeper with some unnamed emotion.

 

“Let’s go”, Miro says, all the urgency gone, that strange peace settling like a warm blanket over him, and now that Ivan is here, he needs nothing. The ride to the hotel is quiet, Ivan looking out at the roads, the trees shedding gold, air cool and sky overcast.

 

The silence lasts until they go up to Ivan’s room, and Miro thinks detachedly that this should be sordid, shameful, but it is not. He stands with his back to the door, watching Ivan dump his light traveling bag on the table, watching the long lean lines of his body, the beautiful hands, hands of an artist, the shadows in the folds of his shirt, the wristbands, the dark serious eyes looking at him as Ivan turns to face him.

 

He is not sure who moves first, but suddenly his aching, empty arms are filled with Ivan, and he hadn’t even known how barren and cold his heart had been until Ivan stepped back into the land of the living, into the bright sunshine, back into Miro’s life. Ivan kisses his throat, unexpectedly tender, and Miro feels Ivan’s eyelashes fluttering against his pulse, as Ivan speaks, between feathery kisses.

 

“Mirek. Mirek. Oh God. I turned around after that first goal, and you weren’t there. I was happy, but it felt incomplete, and now you are never going to be there when I turn after a goal, and Mirek. Oh God.”

 

Miro cups his palms around that face, kisses Ivan’s eyes and lips and the stubborn chin, the proud nose. He slides Ivan’s shirt down his shoulders and kisses his shoulders, then the nipples pebbling under his tongue, his hands tracing the hollows between the ribs, down until he is on his knees, face level with the ugly scars that mar his Ivan’s stomach.

 

His fingers wonderingly trace the puckered scar tissue, jagged lines that speak of Ivan’s suffering and courage, of how much Miro could have lost. He looks up at Ivan whose eyes are closed, as if shielding himself from Miro’s gaze. The gesture is odd and oddly touching, self-confident Ivan shielding himself shyly from Miro, and Miro feels his heart constrict with some emotion which is not wholly love or desire or tenderness, but a strange place where all three meet.

 

Ivan’s voice shakes as Miro’s fingers skate lightly on the raised scars. “Don’t. Those are ugly.”

 

Miro bends his head and kisses those scars, quietly, passionately, possessively. Ivan, to him, has always been beautiful, and those scars are proof that Ivan survived this, that he survived and came back to Miro, that Miro bargained with death and bought Ivan back, even if the price was too great. Sometimes Miro wonders at himself, at how he can bear it.

 

Ivan pulls him up, eyes desperately hungry, kisses him sweet and wet and deep, impatient hands touching him everywhere, as he shakes and trembles with want.

 

Miro knows this desperation; he has become acquainted with it over long lonely nights. He wants to hold Ivan to himself, bind him close, climb within him, so that he is never separated again, but he knows that is never going to be possible and so he meets Ivan halfway, answers him with the same desperation, clutches these few precious hours together closely, the sands of time slipping through his clenched fist.

 

When Ivan moves inside him, he suddenly goes still, for a moment, and it feels strange and achingly good at the same time. Miro touches Ivan, wonderingly, touches the bones of his spine beneath the smooth skin, the warm weight, so familiar and so new, to be learnt again, accepts the kisses like a priceless gift, those kisses that open him up, touching some raw wounded secret place inside him, healing him. Ivan holds him as he shakes with anguished pleasure, and comes apart, holds them both through the storm. They lie together on the tangled sheets, his arms encircling Ivan protectively as the light from the window turns Ivan’s skin golden and Ivan brushes back Miro’s tousled hair from his forehead, very tenderly kisses his shoulders.

 

“I heard you, you know.” Miro is confused for a moment, but Ivan continues. “You came to the hospital in Zagreb, didn’t you, and kissed my forehead. And then you told me you’d never let me go. Didn’t you?”

 

Miro can’t speak for a moment. “How could you? You were drifting in and out of consciousness. I thought…” and his throat closes up.

 

Ivan gathers him closer. “Is that why you came to Bayern?”

 

Miro looks at Ivan, and his love bleeds out from his eyes. “Before I left the hospital, the doctors told me the chances were not good. I was there, out on the sidewalk, trying to hail a cab, and when one stopped, I climbed in and didn’t even tell him where I wanted to go. He must have guessed something, because the next thing I knew, I was in front of the Zagreb cathedral. I went inside and knelt before the Madonna, and my eyes were blind with tears.”

 

Ivan’s own eyes are silver sheened. Miro tries to smile and fails. “I told her I would give up one of the two most important things to me if she spared you.”

 

“She did, Ivan. And I couldn’t give my family up.”

 

Ivan hides his face in the crook of Miro’s neck, and says, quietly, seriously, “I’ll never let you go.”


End file.
